Harvey Lawrence Pekar (; October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010)"United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch Familysearch.org Accessed 19 Mar 2013, Harvey L Pekar, 12 July 2010. was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a well-received film adaptation of the same name.
Frequently described as the "poet laureate of Cleveland","Harvey Pekar Dies: Comic book writer was 'poet laureate of Cleveland'" by Marc Tracy, Tablet, July 12, 2010 Pekar "helped change the appreciation for, and perceptions of, the graphic novel, the drawn memoir, the autobiographical comic narrative.""HARVEY PEKAR: Remembering the man — and legacy — one year later" by Michael Cavna, The Washington Post, 7/13/2011 Pekar described his work as "autobiography written as it's happening. The theme is about staying alive, getting a job, finding a mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition. You have to stay active on all fronts. It's one thing after another. I've tried to control a chaotic universe. And it's a losing battle. But I can't let go. I've tried, but I can't.""Harvey Pekar" (obituary), The Daily Telegraph, July 13, 2010
Among the awards given to Pekar for his work were the Inkpot Award, the American Book Award, a Harvey Award, and his posthumous induction into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame.
Life Harvey Pekar and his younger brother Allen were born in Cleveland, Ohio, to a Jewish family.Schumer, Arlen. "The 13 Most Influential Jewish Creators and Execs, PART 4," 13th Dimension (Sep 22, 2015). Their parents were Saul and Dora Pekar, immigrants from Białystok, Poland. Saul Pekar was a Talmudic scholar who owned a grocery store on Kinsman Avenue, with the family living above the store. Although Pekar said he wasn't close to his parents due to their dissimilar backgrounds and because they worked all the time, he still "marveled at how devoted they were to each other. They had so much love and admiration for one another."
Pekar's first language as a child was Yiddish and he learned to read and appreciate novels in the language.
Pekar said he did not have friends for the first few years of his life.Cleveland by Harvey Pekar, illustrated by Joseph Remnant, Zip Comics and Top Shelf Productions, 2012, page 42. The neighborhood he lived in had once been all white but became mostly black by the 1940s. One of the few white children living there, Pekar was often beaten up. He later believed this instilled in him "a profound sense of inferiority." This experience, however, also taught him to become a "respected street scrapper."
Pekar graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1957. He then briefly served in the United States Navy. After being discharged he attended Case Western Reserve University, where he dropped out after a year. He worked odd jobs before he was hired as file clerk at the Veterans Administration Hospital in 1965.Pekar entry, Britannica Book of the Year 2011 (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2011), p. 149. He held this job after becoming famous, refusing all promotions, until he retired in 2001.
Pekar was married three times. He was married from 1960 to 1972 to his first wife, Karen Delaney.Rhode, Michael G., editor. Harvey Pekar: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists Series) (University Press of Mississippi, 2008), pp. xiii-xiv. According to fellow cartoonist R. Crumb, who knew the couple socially, "She left him.... She took all the money out of their bank account and ran off.... Never heard from her again."
His second wife was Helen Lark Hall, who appeared (as "Lark") in a number of early issues of American Splendor.Crumb, Robert; interviewed by Alexander Wood. "Crumb on Others," The Official Crumb Site (Dec. 2013). They married in 1977. According to Crumb again (and as dramatized in the American Splendor film), "...she was trying to have a career in academia and Harvey would embarrass her. They'd go to these academic cocktail parties and Harvey would deliberately antagonize these professors. He thought the whole academia thing was bullshit. So he used to embarrass her and she'd become angry at him until finally she gave up on him." They divorced in 1982.
Pekar's third wife, whom he married in 1983, was writer Joyce Brabner who became a regular character in American Splendor and to whom he remained married until his death.
In 1990, as described by Publishers Weekly, "Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma and needed chemotherapy. By the time the disease was discovered, the couple was in the midst of buying a house (a tremendous worry to Pekar, who fretted about both the money and corruptions of bourgeois creature comforts).""Our Cancer Year," Publishers Weekly (Sept. 1993). Accessed Jan. 10, 2019. After Pekar's recovery, he and Brabner collaborated on Our Cancer Year (released in 1994), a graphic novel account of that experience, as well as his harrowing yet successful treatment.
Around this same time, Brabner and Pekar became guardians of a young girl, Danielle Batone, when she was nine years old. Danielle became the couple's foster daughter and eventually became a recurring character in American Splendor as well."A splendid take on the funny peculiar," Sydney Morning Herald (May 1, 2004).
After his 2001 retirement, Pekar increasingly relied on freelance and collaborative book-length projects for income, as his earlier self-published work had often generated limited financial return.
Pekar lived in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with Brabner and Batone.
Career Early comics work Pekar's friendship with Robert Crumb led to the creation of the self-published, autobiographical comic book series American Splendor. Crumb and Pekar became friends through their shared love of jazz records."Who is Harvey Pekar?" , WKSU.org It took Pekar a decade to do so: "I theorized for maybe ten years about doing comics.""Harvey Pekar" , Metajam.mobi Pekar's influences from the literary world included James Joyce, Arthur Miller, George Ade, Henry Roth, and Daniel Fuchs.American Splendor: Harvey Pekar, Paul Giamatti, Shari Springer Berman, and Robert Pulcini, Charlie Rose (August 19, 2003).
Around 1972, Pekar laid out some stories with crude stick figures and showed them to Crumb and another artist, Robert Armstrong. Impressed, they both offered to illustrate.Rhode. Harvey Pekar: Conversations, p. 19. Pekar & Crumb's one-pager "Crazy Ed" was published as the back cover of Crumb's The People's Comics (Golden Gate Publishing Company, 1972), becoming Pekar's first published work of comics. Including "Crazy Ed" and before the publication of American Splendor #1, Pekar wrote a number of other comic stories that were published in a variety of outlets: "Crazy Ed", with Robert Crumb, in The People's Comics (Golden Gate Publishing Company, 1972) "A Mexican Tale," with Greg Budgett and Munan, in Flaming Baloney X (Propaganda Ink, c. 1975) "It Pays to Advertise" with Willy Murphy, in Flamed-Out Funnies #1 (Keith Green, Aug. 1975) "Ain' It the Truth" with Willy Murphy, in Flamed-Out Funnies #1 (Keith Green, Aug. 1975) "The Boys on the Corner: A Good Shit Is Best" with Willy Murphy, in Flamed-Out Funnies #1 (Keith Green, Aug. 1975) "The Kinsman Cowboys: How'd Ya Get Inta This Bizness Ennyway?" with Greg Budgett & Gary Dumm, in Bizarre Sex #4 (Kitchen Sink Press, Oct. 1975) "Famous Street Fights: The Champ" with Robert Armstrong in Comix Book #4 (Kitchen Sink Press, Feb. 1976) "Don't Rain on My Parade" with Robert Armstrong in Snarf #6 (Kitchen Sink Press, Feb. 1976)
American Splendor
The first issue of Pekar's self-published American Splendor series appeared in May 1976, with stories illustrated by Crumb, Dumm, Budgett, and Brian Bram. Applying the "brutally frank autobiographical style of Henry Miller," American Splendor documented Pekar's daily life in the aging neighborhoods of his native Cleveland.
Pekar and his work came to greater prominence in 1986 when Doubleday collected much of the material from the first ten issues in American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar,Carlson, Michael. "Harvey Pekar: Writer who celebrated the minutiae of everyday life in his 'American Splendor' series," The Independent (23 October 2011). which was positively reviewed by, among others, The New York Times.Rosenthal, David. "THE COSMIS MEETS THE ORDINARY. POW!," New York Times (May 11, 1986). (1986 was also the year Pekar began appearing on Late Night with David Letterman.)
Pekar self-published 15 issues of American Splendor from 1976 to 1991 (issue #16 was co-published with Tundra Publishing). Dark Horse Comics took on the publishing and distribution of Pekar's comics from 1993 to 2003.
In 2006, Pekar released a four-issue American Splendor miniseries through the DC Comics imprint Vertigo Comics. This was collected in the American Splendor: Another Day paperback. In 2008 Vertigo released a second four-issue "season" of American Splendor that was later collected in the American Splendor: Another Dollar paperback.
Pekar's best-known and longest-running collaborators include Crumb,Fiore, Robert. "Harvey Pekar, R.I.P.," Fantagraphics blog (July 13, 2010). Dumm, Budgett, Spain Rodriguez, Joe Zabel, Gerry Shamray, Frank Stack, Mark Zingarelli, and Joe Sacco. In the 2000s, he teamed regularly with artists Dean Haspiel and Josh Neufeld. Other cartoonists who worked with him include Jim Woodring, Chester Brown, Alison Bechdel, Gilbert Hernandez, Eddie Campbell, David Collier, Drew Friedman, Ho Che Anderson, Rick Geary, Ed Piskor, Hunt Emerson, Bob Fingerman, and Alex Wald; as well as such non-traditional illustrators as Pekar's wife, Joyce Brabner, and comics writer Alan Moore.
In addition to his autobiographical work on American Splendor, Pekar wrote a number of biographies. The first of these, American Splendor: Unsung Hero (Dark Horse Comics, 2003), illustrated by David Collier, documented the Vietnam War experience of Robert McNeill, one of Pekar's African-American coworkers at Cleveland's VA hospital.
Stories from the American Splendor comics have been collected in many books and anthologies.
American Splendor film
A film adaptation of American Splendor was released in 2003, directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman. It starred Paul Giamatti as Pekar, as well as appearances by Pekar himself (and his wife Joyce, foster daughter Danielle, and co-worker Toby Radloff). American Splendor won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, in addition to the award for Best Adapted Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America. At the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, the film received the FIPRESCI critics award. American Splendor was given the Guardian New Directors Award at the 2003 Edinburgh International Film Festival.Pulver, Andrew. "The albino, the mineshaft or the comic-book artist?", The Guardian (August 25, 2003). It was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2003 Academy Awards. Pekar wrote about the effects of the film in American Splendor: Our Movie Year.
Other comics work
On October 5, 2005, the DC Comics imprint Vertigo published Pekar's autobiographical hardcover The Quitter, with artwork by Dean Haspiel. The book traces Pekar's youth in postwar Cleveland, depicting an angry, insecure teenager who drifts through school, jobs, and relationships while repeatedly abandoning pursuits out of anxiety and fear of failure.
In the years following, Pekar produced a large number of book-length graphic works in rapid succession, often in collaboration with other writers, the editor Paul Buhle, and his long-time American Splendor artist Gary Dumm. These books often focus on biography, history, and reportage rather than the memoir comics with which Pekar had established his reputation.